A Long Overdue Conversation
by JeannieMac
Summary: "William," said Julia suddenly. "May I ask you something rather personal?"


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

_This is set at some indeterminate point in the future of the show, when William and Julia are finally, officially engaged. It's a continuation, in some ways, of the scene in "Shades of Grey" (Season 3) when we - and Murdoch - first found out about the abortion that she had as a medical student. The conversation they had then was never really resolved, and I think it has been a major catalyst for many of the problems they've had since. I wanted to give them a chance to address it properly at last!_

_Warning for differences of opinion about abortion...and 19th-century attitudes about same._

* * *

Julia looked down at her companion and could not help but smile to herself. William had finished carefully packing away the remains of their picnic, and now lay stretched out beside her on his back, gaze fixed on the gently waving branches of the maple tree that sheltered them from the late afternoon sun. Even in such a relaxed pose, he remained his usual quiet and contained self, lying quite still with his legs crossed neatly at the ankles and his hands laced together on his chest. But...he had abandoned his jacket earlier, and rolled up his sleeves a little to lay out their lunch, and she found herself unreasonably distracted by the sight of his wrists and bare forearms. He had removed his necktie at one point as well, to use as a prop in a discussion they had been having about one of his current cases, and she was secretly glad that he seemed to have forgotten to put it back on.

A comfortable silence had fallen between them; he watched the sun filtering through the green leaves above them, and she watched him, out of the corner of her eye so he would not notice. The park was quiet; she could almost believe that they were somehow the only two people in Toronto who had decided to enjoy the afternoon out of doors.

She thought about lying down beside him. Would he put his arm around her and draw her in close...would her head fit perfectly the way she imagined it would, in the hollow of his shoulder? The crisp white shirt would be warm under her cheek, from the sun and from the heat of his body...she would be able to feel his heart beat, his chest rise and fall with each breath...

"William," she said suddenly.

He turned his head slightly, blinking a little, and smiled up at her. "Yes?"

"May I ask you something rather personal?"

"Of course."

Julia took a breath, and spoke before she could convince herself not to. "Have you been...intimate with a woman before?"

William froze for a split second, and then sat up carefully, clearing his throat, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. The easy peace between them shattered with his movement, and she spoke hurriedly, trying vainly to recapture it.

"I am sorry if I embarrass you. But, William, we are going to be married... and I – I feel this is something a husband and wife should know about each other." She watched him in profile, trying to read his expression. "You – well, you already know something of my past. I would be willing to tell you more about it, if you wish to know."

"I have always felt it would be ungentlemanly to ask." William sounded about equal parts amused, and as though he could not quite catch his breath. "I might have known you would have no such qualms."

He did not mean it unkindly, she knew, but it still stung a bit.

"If you would rather not discuss it, you have only to say so," she said a little too sharply.

Silence. She heard William draw breath, start to speak, stop. Another breath.

"Once," he muttered, so low that she was not sure she had heard him.

"I beg your pardon -

"Well, t-twice, I suppose," he spoke over her, strained. "Or perhaps three times. Technically speaking..."

_Technically speaking?_ Her lips twitched, she could not help it, and he, glancing sideways, caught her expression. The tension between them broke into laughter, a little breathless with nerves.

William cleared his throat again.

"It was one night," he said. "One woman."

He was flushed, she saw, but determined, and her heart twisted with love and gratitude.

"I was eighteen. It was when I was working in the logging camp. Most of the other men there were older than me and...very rough, I suppose, although they were good workers, highly skilled. They used to...have women come in from the nearest town, sometimes. There was a lot of drinking, and...well. I mostly tried to ignore it all." He shot her another sideways look, this one all self-deprecating amusement. "I was even more serious then than I am now, if you can imagine that."

"Anyway, the men, they – well, they took it as a sort of challenge, I think. To ...educate me in the ways of the world."

"And of women?" she prompted slyly. He was having trouble meeting her eyes again.

"Yes. It was my birthday – I had never really celebrated it before, at the orphanage or at school. I had rather a lot to drink, and then – one of the women... Looking back, I am certain they must have paid her on my behalf. I think – I believe they truly felt they were doing me a favour."

"And you went along with it?" She couldn't quite fathom it.

"I knew it was a sin. But...I was drunk. And she was...very persuasive..." He gestured helplessly. "I was eighteen!"

She snickered. It was unladylike, but she couldn't help it. Then she leaned forward, trying to catch his gaze.

"Three times?" she prompted.

"Julia!" He sounded scandalized, but when he looked at her she could tell he was trying not to smile. "Do you truly wish to hear more?"

She reached out and laid her hand on his cheek. He was warm; she could almost feel the blood humming beneath the skin. She thought he might be trembling, just a little...or maybe she was.

"Perhaps another time. After we are married, when you can show me what you learned, rather than simply telling me..."

He drew in his breath, staring at her with wide, dark eyes. Then, without warning, he closed the distance between them, his mouth hot on hers and just a little bit desperate.

It was probably wrong of her to push him, she thought distantly. But oh, she loved that she could make him forget restraint, sometimes. It thrilled her to her bones to glimpse in him a rough, consuming, helpless passion that seemed to match her own. She kissed him back eagerly, and shivered deep down inside, to think of what it might be like between them when they were married at last, and could be alone together in private with no reason to hold back any longer.

Too soon, of course, he pulled back, but only far enough to lean his forehead against hers as they both struggled to control their breathing.

"Two more months," he said, like a prayer. Reading her mind, apparently.

She laughed shakily. "It seems an eternity, just now."

He straightened up, his gaze travelling over her face like a caress.

"I feel compelled to point out that it was you who brought up this ...enervating...topic in the first place."

"Yes, I suppose it was." She caught his hand, briefly, as he withdrew. "Thank you. For telling me."

He gave a small shrug and looked away, shy again. She thought how singular it was, that this almost painful tenderness could coexist with the desire that still vibrated through her.

"His name was Rob," she said. "My first lover. He was a fellow student, one of the few who didn't take every possible opportunity to belittle me for deigning to believe that women could study medicine. We were friends. And then, for a while, we were more than friends."

William nodded once. She watched him open his mouth, and then shut it again and look away. She knew he was thinking of the last time they had discussed this, the way all their certainty about each other had seemed to erode with each new revelation. _We are stronger now_, she thought. _We have to be._

"I know that you have questions," she said gently. "Just ask, William. It's all right."

"How did - that is, were you -" William struggled, gave up. Pressed his lips together and started again. "What was he like?"

"He was...clever. Funny. Very passionate about his studies - I believe that is what drew me to him most. He had dreamt of becoming a doctor since childhood, as I had. It was exciting, to be learning and working together at something we both loved." She met his eyes and smiled. "As you know, that can be quite a powerful aphrodisiac."

"Indeed."

William smiled back. There was a pause, and Julia wondered if he would leave it there. If his natural reticence - and the memory of the pain the topic had caused them both - would silence him, as had happened so often in the past. _Too often_, she thought wistfully. _How can we ever truly know each other if we never speak of these things? _

"You must have known how...dangerous it might be," said William slowly. "To enter into a relationship outside of marriage."

He was tentative, but she could see him turning it over in his mind. _We *are* going to discuss it, then. Be careful what you wish for, Julia my dear. _

"I thought I knew all the risks, of course. I fancied myself a modern woman: educated, practical, free from the archaic constraints of traditional morality."

The grandiose words, an echo of her younger self, came out with a twist of bitterness that she had not intended. Gazing out at the lake, she could feel William's eyes on her.

"Dr. Tash told me, when we first met, that you were 'a real pistol' in your college days."

Julia rolled her eyes.

"What a typically male way of putting it," she said tartly, grateful for something to cover the complicated emotion that had welled up, the old pain nearer to the surface than expected.

"I was no more reckless than most of the young men of my acquaintance," she continued after a moment. "Including you, as it turns out..."

William's face was a study, she saw with fleeting amusement. It was clear that it would never have occurred to him to put her actions in the same category as his.

"However, unlike them - and you - I nearly paid with my life, for being young and silly and thinking myself in love."

She kept her tone as neutral as she could manage. This was getting close to dangerous ground.

"It is unfair, that the woman should risk so much more than the man," William said after a moment. She could see that he meant it, and felt a rush of relief that he, too, seemed to want the conversation to take a different path this time.

He took a breath, about to continue, and then shot her a rueful look. "Given my own...indiscretions, it is sheerest hypocrisy on my part. But...I cannot help but think that your young man - Rob - should have known what might happen. Especially as a medical student. He should not have been willing to put you in danger that way."

She laughed a little, without much humour. "Oh, William. Some of the answer about Rob lies in your own story from just now..."

He looked blank, and she raised an eyebrow at him. "He was eighteen...and I was_ very_ persuasive."

That shocked him, she could tell.

"Yes, but, Julia - " he started, after a moment.

"It was my choice," she said steadily. "An unfortunate one, perhaps, but mine alone. Do you think it wrong that a woman should decide for herself in matters of intimacy?"

"No," said William after a short, fraught pause. Then again, more firmly, "No. But - after the decision is made, there are still two people involved. The man has some responsibility. All the more so in the case of - of a pregnancy."

"As it happens, Rob felt the same as you. He proposed to me, after I told him what had happened."

"But you did not marry him."

He was not accusing her, she reminded herself. He was trying to make sense of it all.

"It would have meant giving up my studies, my dream of becoming a doctor."

"But - why? There are women doctors who have families. Dr. Emily Stowe, for one, and her daughter..."

"Yes, but they waited until their children were grown before they even began their studies," she said. "They were respectable women with respectable husbands who supported them, and they still met with opposition and slander at every turn. As I did, I might add, before anything ever happened with Rob."

"I know, but - "

"Forgive me, William, but you _don't_ know. You can't. You were not there, to see what it was like for me as a student. Half the faculty and most of my fellow students at Bishop's thought I was a loose woman, a corrupting influence, a threat - just because I dared to attend their classes and learn what they were learning. How much worse would it have become, if I had married in haste and borne a child that _everyone would know_ was conceived out of wedlock?!"

In spite of her best efforts, she heard her voice rising at the end, and cut herself off abruptly. There was a small silence.

"Forgive me," said William, stiffly. "It is hardly my place to - to interrogate you about this."

"Oh William, please don't apologize!" she said exasperatedly. "I invited you to ask me about it, did I not? I am trying to make you understand. I won't pretend to find it a pleasant topic of conversation, but I do believe it is important that we discuss it. Being...less than open...about difficult things has not served us well in the past. Surely you must agree?"

"I do. Yes."

She waited, but William could not seem to find the words to continue. It did not take long for her frayed nerves to give way.

"Permit me to speculate, then. You are now wondering why I did not go away somewhere to have the baby and discreetly leave it on the steps of the nearest church."

He gave her a look for her cavalier tone. "Yes," he said evenly. "If marriage was not - not possible, I do wonder why you did not give up the child for adoption."

"I considered it. Of course I did. But the idea of bringing a human being into the world, only to knowingly consign it to life as an orphan...seemed to me a worse kind of irresponsibility than the other."

"At least the child would have had a chance at life!" said William, sharply and almost involuntarily.

_Now we come to it at last_, she thought, flinching. The fundamental difference, the thing that had forced them apart before. She swallowed hard, and spoke without looking at him, fixing her gaze on the sparkling lake.

"Perhaps I was selfish. I was afraid. Women die in childbirth every day, William. My own mother almost did, more than once. She never fully recovered from Ruby's birth; she was an invalid for the rest of her life."

Julia shut her eyes briefly, remembering the days and nights she had spent trying to come to a decision. Trying to be logical, scientific, going round and round like a terrified rat in a maze.

"I do not think I can properly convey to you how utterly, completely trapped I felt. I am not sure any man could ever fully understand."

She risked a sideways glance. William's face was a mask, the same one he wore when a suspect was spinning him a tale.

"It was a cage - a prison," she said at last, very deliberately. "I still have nightmares about it on occasion. About as often as I dream of the noose, in fact, and probably for some of the same reasons."

He flinched visibly at that, and stared at her, searching her face. She lifted her chin and held his gaze with an effort. Her words hung in the space between them, heavy and irrevocable. Then, it was his turn to look away, out at the lake. As the silence stretched out between them, something painful lodged in her throat, a swelling echo of the fear and loneliness from all those years ago.

_I will not cry_, she thought._ I will _not._ He must not pity me. _

Abruptly she could stand it no longer.

"Would you excuse me for a moment - " She struggled to rise and immediately stumbled, light-headed, her leg muscles stiff from sitting so long. William, on his feet in a flash, reached for her elbow. She twitched away from his grasp.

"No, I am fine! Please, William, I just want to walk a little ways. Alone."

She left him standing there, mute, with the caught, frozen look she was beginning to recognize as the expression he wore when he was deeply distressed and did not know how to express it. She had seen it only a few times before, and remembered all too well the long misunderstandings and wrenching, always-unfinished arguments that had followed.

_Please let this time be different, _she prayed._ Surely we have both learned to manage things better. _

_Let him only talk to me. Even if it is to disagree. _

She walked down the grassy hill a bit, towards the lake, and then stopped. She drew in a deep breath, and then another, striving for calm. It seemed a long time before she heard him approach. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him come to stand beside her, gazing for another moment out at the water before he took a steadying breath of his own and faced her.

"I have a lot to think about," he said. "I will not pretend that I am...comfortable with everything you have told me."

"I understand," she said carefully. "I am not seeking your approval, William. Or your forgiveness."

"I know. You said as much, the last time we spoke of this."

"Then, there was...this put a distance, between us." She was proud of how steady her voice remained. "If you need some time, now - "

"No!" William cut her off with unusual force. He reached out to take her hands. "No. I regret that distance; it has occurred too many times between us. The fault is mine, I think - the right words do not come easily to me in...personal situations."

He shook his head a little, frustrated, and his grip on her fingers tightened.

"Julia, listen. I am - I will try to understand. I promise. I want to know you - _all_ of you. I want you to know me in the same way. As you said, we are going to be married...and I think that is how a marriage should be."

"For better or worse?" She was crying a little, after all.

"Yes," said William firmly, his eyes suspiciously bright too, just before she launched herself at him.

He caught her hard against him, so close that she could feel his heart pounding. _Public place be damned_, she thought incoherently, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face there. They held each other tightly for a long moment.

Eventually, William cleared his throat.

"Does it strike you as strange," he said conversationally, "that in all this time Constable Crabtree has not appeared? He usually has quite a knack for interrupting important discussions."

She giggled into his shoulder, and if it was a little hysterical with emotion and the sudden release of tension, William seemed not to mind. She was inordinately pleased that, while his embrace had relaxed, his arms were still around her and he was making no move to draw away. Wanting suddenly to see his face, she lifted her head. That was dangerous, though, because she found him looking back at her with his heart in his eyes and a small smile that trembled just a little, and then she had to kiss him. Once, twice, a third time, each longer and more involved than the last, until -

"I love you very much," she said against his mouth. "In case that was not already obvious. But perhaps - perhaps we had better not tempt fate any farther today."

_In more ways than one_, she thought. They had avoided pitfalls worse than being discovered by George, this afternoon. The conversation was not over; she rather thought it had just properly begun. But she was also certain now that it would continue, that they could continue it together. _Another day. We have time. We have the rest of our lives. _

William kissed her once more as though he could not help himself, and then stepped back. Standing straight before her, he was once more the proper, self-contained gentleman - except for the look of suppressed, dazed, almost disbelieving joy that he always got when she said she loved him. It made her want to repeat it over and over.

He gestured back towards their picnic, and the path beyond.

"Shall we?"

She took his arm. "Yes. Let us walk, and talk of inconsequential, respectable things."

"Such as...?"

She turned her face up to the sun, as though searching for suggestions in the trees and the sky. She was aware of William watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"You cannot think of anything, can you?" he said eventually, his mouth twitching. She gestured exasperatedly.

"Nothing interesting!"

That made him laugh outright, as she had hoped it would.

"Thank goodness," he said.

THE END


End file.
